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The devastation has also been seen by some as an opportunity to make a statement about the future. The most visible impact of Japan's earthquake in China, however, came Wednesday night after state media addressed the possibility not of radiation being China through the air, but rumors that China's salt supply will soon be exposed to radiation along the east coast.

The fact that state media were used to tell China not to worry about the safety of the future salt supply seems to have had the opposite effect, and led to mass panic buying of salt in several cities, which spread as rumors went unabated. The spectacle, particularly the silliness of it, dominated [zh] discussion on Weibo and most other online spaces all of Wednesday night, and Weibo staff began deleting most salt panic tweets as soon as they appeared, apparently fueling the frenzy. Sina Weibo's own official account tasked with refuting online rumors had yet to mention the salt panic by midnight Wednesday.

Silly urban residents are going insane rushing to buy salt, afraid that all sea salt from today on will have been exposed to radiation. I would hope people could be a bit more rational and not jump on the idiotic panic buying bandwagon. I took this photo at 9:35 tonight at the local department store here in Guangzhou.

Silly city people panic buying salt, afraid that all sea salt from today on will have been exposed to radiation. People, please keep your wits about you, don't jump on the idiotic panic buying bandwagon, don't contribute to the panic or the chaos. This was taken at 9pm at the Xicun TrustMart in Guangzhou, where kitchen salt got snatched up clean in a few seconds.

上海JC：晚上9点多出门抢购盐，竟然没个地方有盐卖，上海进入无盐状态。图为家乐福盐架，10余个品种的盐被抢购一空，杯具了

ShanghaiJC: I went out after 9 PM to snatch up some salt, turns out every place was already sold out. Shanghai is now completely out of salt. The picture is from Carrefour, which was picked clean of more than 10 brands of salt. Tragic.

http://t.sina.com.cn/1926486363/wr4kmXp3ak
宁波的抢盐现场，妈的，要多夸张有多夸张，

From the scene of the salt panic in Ningbo, damnit. It's gone way too overboard.

My uncle in Shenzhen runs a supermarket, he called to tell me that the salt panic has reached Shenzhen too, selling for RMB 10 a bag. He told us to make sure we have salt back in the hometown. Relatives there as soon as they heard rushed out and bought 20 bags.

People everywhere have gone insane and are rushing to buy salt. Didn't they say this was just a rumor? Why does everybody think the salt has been tainted? Just now my relatives from the countryside phoned to say that salt out there is gong for RMB 18 a bag, and some people took 10 boxes of it home. Some shops here have even stopped selling their salt. Oh my god….

Wenzhou microblogger thalorfield, retweeted by the official China International Relief and Rescue Squad (CIRRS) microblog account:

Widespread panic buying of kitchen salt and other condiments took place today in areas across Zhejiang province, apparently the result of rumors that salt can no longer be harvested from the coast due to radiation. Those thinking soberly will know that the salt we eat doesn't come straight from Hangzhou Bay!!! In order to stop these rumors, please retweet this!! Please! —Mgmnt: We haven't heard any news that radiation from Japan has reached China, the news said that all tests showed normal results!

The Japanese aren't panic buying salt, so why have we started? Japan is quite far from Ningbo, please stop. Our salt comes from Qinghai, and there's no shortage of it. Please volunteer to help quickly put out this disaster. Thank you.

This photo comes from Sina's Finance News channel, which quotes one netizen:

“Everyone is snatching up salt, and the price has already doubled, you can't even buy salt now if you want to. A friend of hers’ family runs a supermarket and they just got four crates of salt. It was gone in a split second.” The reporter then discovered that all major supermarkets in Hangzhou are now sold out of salt.

The panic buying is not just in the south. My wife lives in Tonghua, in Jilin Province. She just messaged me in Changchun asking me to buy some salt for her. The news said it would stop radiation poisoning.

Thanks for the information. Sina Weibo on Wednesday night, at least from what I saw, seemed to be mainly concerned about salt supplies drying up. I suspect the difference might be along geographic lines, with more of this concern in Southern China given the amount of salt used in cooking. I hope though that people aren’t gulping down spoonfuls of salt, apparently it doesn’t take much to do serious damage to one’s body.